Search Results: pope benedict

In 1871 Mary MacKillop was excommunicated
by her local bishop on the grounds that 'she had incited the
sisters to disobedience and defiance'. The idea of a holy woman who had been at loggerheads with the
hierarchy is not new in the annals of the
saints.

Last week, Pope Benedict gave Kevin Rudd a copy of his new encyclical Caritas in Veritate. Rudd gave the Pope a copy of the National Apology. I wonder what the radical Redfern priest Ted Kennedy would have made of this exchange of literary gifts.

The Pope's social encyclical comes at a time when Australian churches increasingly have to provide charity to those who have been
failed by the state. For charity to constitute true giving, social organisations must also be prepared to commit politically.

Assumptions that detained businessman Stern Hu could not be guilty because he is Australian show how national pride can cloud perceptions. Something similar was at play in calls for Kevin Rudd to lobby the Pope for the canonisation of Mary MacKillop.

This week's release of the new social encyclical Caritas in Veritate expands moral teaching to promote a concept of 'human ecology' that covers both human life and the environment. It would seem that Benedict is not a climate change sceptic.

The Pope's encyclical on social teaching is not a strident critique of
capitalism, but it does confront
abuses in the global economy. Benedict is critical of the free market ideology which extolled wealth
creation but ignored the need for equity and social justice.

Abstinence and fidelity win little public support in Western discourse, but are increasingly included, even favoured, in national AIDS strategies in Africa. Culture counts, and a condom is more than a piece of latex.

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson's book is an invitation to put fear behind us. Given the treatment it has received by people who should have known better, it has become an icon; a call to conversation without fear.

In his forthcoming response to the global financial crisis, Pope Benedict does not have to reinvent the wheel. Catholic social
writings have long insisted that economics must be directed to serve
the good of everyone, not just the rich.

The Pope's criticism of condoms was forged in a Western context, but reflects an aspect of the African experience of AIDS. There, a value-free Western strategy has been inadequate because it does not deal with important cultural factors.

Professor Martha Nussbaum's recent book Liberty of Conscience provides a rich textured treatment of the place of religion in the public square. If God is taken out of the picture,
it may be difficult to maintain a human rights commitment to the
weakest and most despised in society.